


Cipher

by zhedang



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Era, Doctor Eren Yeager, Hospitalization, M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 19:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10556344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zhedang/pseuds/zhedang
Summary: An expedition goes wrong-- very wrong. When Levi gets grounded with a broken leg, he figures he's due a few boring months of lying around feeling useless before he can get back into the field. But a traitor within the Survey Corps, a threat of another attack on humanity, and a peculiar doctor make Levi's recovery far more complicated-- and dangerous-- than he ever expected.A canon-divergent AU in which Eren goes into medicine rather than the military but gets tangled up with the plot anyway.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go, another multi-chapter fic, though this one should be shorter than my usual. I'm estimating in the ballpark of 25K words, but who knows? I've done my best to stick to canon as closely as possible despite the new revelations coming out with each monthly chapter, hahaha.
> 
> While drafting, I kept changing my mind about what tense I wanted to tell the story in. I've finally settled on past tense since it's most comfortable for me, but no doubt there are some tense errors still scattered about that I missed in my edits. Sorry.
> 
> And finally-- I've never broken my leg and I have only the foggiest idea of what medical science is capable of in AoT canon era, so there is a lot of guesswork going on with the medical aspects of this fic. If something is waaaaay off, feel free to let me know.

Mikasa’s hand was a tight snarl around the fistful of green cloth and melting snow she had pressed to Levi’s leg. Levi looked at her white knuckles, then at the bloody cut under her eye, then at the water-stained ceiling of the makeshift clinic. Anywhere but at his leg. Feeling it was bad enough; he didn’t need to see the bone poking through the skin again.

Mikasa wasn’t looking either. She scanned the crowd, searching the mass of doctors and wounded soldiers for anyone who seemed unoccupied. Whenever she spotted a military medic without a patient, she barked at them, but they were always inevitably headed for someone in more critical condition. With each dismissal, Mikasa’s icy fury hardened.

Levi just wished he would pass out again. Being unconscious earlier had been the best part of his day by far.

“Relax.” He pushed the word out between his gritted teeth. “Not— _fuck_. Not gonna die.”

“You’re in pain,” Mikasa said. Her voice was colder than the snow-stuffed cloak she held against his leg. “You need treatment. Now.”

“Other people—” Levi had to stop. His jaw seized, hands twitching. He forced himself to breathe through his nose until the urge to vomit dissipated. “Need help more,” he finished.

Like Nanaba. Levi had only gotten a glimpse and overheard a few snatches, but she was bleeding out bad from her marred side. From what he heard, it sounded like she won’t keep that injured eye either. Levi wouldn’t exactly say she was a friend of his, but Nanaba was a damn good soldier and Mike had been very fond of her. Levi would patiently wait for hours to be treated if it meant Nanaba got seen by plenty of doctors.

“We need more medics is what we need,” Mikasa growled. “Too many in Sheena. When do the MPs need that much medical attention? Never.”

Levi didn’t bother to reply, too busy clenching his teeth around the latest surge of pain. His vision blacked out and Levi went with it for a moment. Possibly longer. When his vision cleared again, Mikasa had finally captured a doctor’s attention.

“You did a good job with the splint,” the doctor told her. Levi couldn’t get a good look at him through all the tears prickling at his eyes, but he could see that he is in plainclothes, a battered black bag by his side. Not military then. They must’ve rustled up some local doctors to help treat all the injured. “The snow and the elevation were smart ideas too.”

“Can you give him something?” Mikasa asked. No, it was more of a demand than a request. “For the pain.”

The doctor ignored her abrupt manner. “When did you tie this tourniquet? Less than two hours ago? Good.” He tightened Mikasa’s makeshift tourniquet, then bent to rummage in his bag before emerging with a glass bottle filled with a dark liquid. The doctor addressed Levi for the first time. “Hey. You smoke opium? Eat it?”

Levi shook his head once and then stopped before he threw up on himself. Or screamed. Or both.

“No? You better be telling the truth. I need to know so I can get your dose right,” the doctor said, brandishing the bottle for emphasis.

“No,” Levi snapped, then bit down on his lip until he tasted blood.

“All right,” the doctor said, unphased. He poured out a dose, counting each drop under his breath. When he held the spoon out, Levi immediately swallowed it down. The terrible taste barely registered.

“Here, you distract him,” the doctor instructed Mikasa. “Talk to him while I get this sorted out. And hold him down good.”  

Sorted out. Like he was going to organize some files, not shove a bone back into Levi’s leg. Levi wasn’t sure if he appreciated the understatement or if he hated it.

Mikasa moved away from Levi’s leg, letting the bundle of snow go so the doctor could examine the break properly. She hesitated, then leaned over him to brace herself against both of his shoulders.. “...I saw Terrance over that way,” Mikasa said, nodding her head toward the  left. “He was standing up, so the head wound must have looked worse than it was. I think he’ll be okay.”

That was good. At just seventeen, Terrance was the youngest in Levi’s squad. Levi felt shitty about requesting someone so young for one of the most dangerous teams in the Survey Corps, but he needed Terrance’s skills. For his part, Terrance seemed beyond thrilled when he got the notice. It hadn’t made Levi feel any better. Still didn’t.

“Everyone else?” Levi grunted, wincing as the doctor’s fingers prodded around his wound.

“I saw Petra and Eld earlier, they’re fine.” Mikasa paused. Levi stared blearily up at her face, watching as she mentally reviewed over her memory of the last couple of hours. “...I haven’t seen Gunther.”

Levi tried to remember when he last saw Gunther, but a shout tore from his throat as his leg suddenly exploded with pain. His body seized, but Mikasa held him down flat and the doctor kept pushing his bone in.

“Almost done, almost done,” the doctor chanted. “Just got to finish setting it.”

If he said anything else, Levi didn’t hear it-- he slipped under. He stayed.

========

The expedition was a bad one.

Not that any expedition ever went exceptionally well. They lost soldiers, good people, on every trip into Titan territory. If they could keep their casualties low and accomplish the majority of their objectives, they wrote the mission off as a success. That was the reality of it.

This expedition was different.

It was a simple mission. Just checking the condition of their southern supply line and adding to it, making it stretch a little farther out. Nothing they hadn’t done before. They’d been working on this supply line for years, re-establishing it after their fledgling efforts were destroyed for the second time during the Battle for Trost. The bulk of the Titans in the nearby area had been wiped out, so they only dealt with the stragglers and the new ones who wandered into the zone. As far as expeditions went, this one was about as safe as it got.

But they were blindsided.

They weren’t too far out from Wall Rose when the first Titan appeared. Levi didn’t think anything of it, not at first. His squad was at the head of the formation; they were meant to encounter Titans. A second came, a third-- nothing unusual. His squad made short work of them. But when Levi looked up from his first kill of the day and saw all the signal flares streaking the sky-- too many to count, too many-- his gut twisted into a snarl.

Then, the stampede.

They came from the east, grotesque and smiling. A horde, ten-- no, twenty, no-- Levi lost track, instead trying to sight all of his squad members. With this many, they couldn’t separate, they must either retreat together or make a stand as one. He counted them as he flew from Titan to Titan-- Mikasa, Eld, Gunther, Petra, Terrance, all slicing through the air like they’d been trained, all alive and fighting. Good, good. The blast of signal flares kept echoing around him and he could only hope that the other squads were managing as well.

He cut down a Titan with a beak-like nose and anchored himself to what was once a clocktower to survey the situation. More were still pouring in from the east, thirty now, forty, more Titans than he’d ever seen, aside from the doomed Maria reclamation mission. His people were good, but this was impossible.

“Fall back!” he yelled. He turned to make sure they all heard, sucking in a hard breath to shout over the slaughter. “Fall--”

His words sank like stones as he stared into the west-- right into the fresh sea of Titans before him, their teeth blunt and bright.

=====

Levi woke slowly, his head fuzzy and his entire body aching like a black and blue bruise. He smelled the blood, saw the water-stained ceiling, and remembered where he is. The clinic. His leg. People were still moving all around him, less frantic now.

Mikasa was gone.

He tried to sit up, but only managed to tuck one arm under his body before someone pushed him down.

“Whoa, no, none of that,” a man said. The doctor from before. His hand was gentle but firm as he pressed Levi flat onto his back. “I just finished the stitches. Haven’t even dressed your wound yet. Stay still.”

Levi felt like he might throw up again, so he rested his head back against the flimsy pillow and waited for the urge to pass. Once it seemed safe to open his mouth, he asked, “Mikasa?”

“The Commander came and collected her. I’m sure she’ll be back soon. She was real worried, didn’t want to leave.”

That sounded like Mikasa. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of him since he found her wandering the Underground, bare feet bloody and filthy clothes hanging half off her thin frame. She didn’t tell him anything, but it wasn’t hard to follow the red footprint trail back to where she had been stashed. Wasn’t hard to kill the two men still there, nursing sloppy knife wounds and plotting their next move over the dead body of a woman. Mikasa’s mother was still clutching the blade.

Mikasa did the following after that, even trailed after him right into the Survey Corps once she was old enough. Stupid kid.

Levi wasn’t that smart either though. Maybe that was what made the two of them close enough to be called family.

Levi tried wiggling his toes. He couldn’t tell if he was successful or not, but it sure hurt like a fucker. “How’s my leg?” The words emerged in a dry rasp and he coughed, wincing as pain flared throughout his body.

“You feel that?” the doctor asked, jabbing Levi’s foot. Levi nodded and the doctor moved higher up. “Here too?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the good news is, you’ll walk again-- assuming you don’t get an infection and die,” the doctor said. “I’ve got the puncture wound stitched up and dressed now, but it has to stay clean and dry. The bandages are gonna need to be changed often until it closes better. I’ll make sure your military doc knows.”

It was a lot of information to take in at once. His head throbbed, the pain just barely held in check by whatever the doctor gave him earlier. It was making him woozy too. When he was ready, Levi asked, “And the bad news?”

“You’ve got a long recovery ahead of you and I don’t know what the results are gonna be like. You might have a limp. You might have a really bad limp, might not be able to run or jump anymore. Or you might be fine. Hard to tell at this point.”

The doctor finished what he was doing-- re-splinting the leg, Levi realized-- and came around to stand at the head of Levi’s cot. “You should know, with a break like this, your chances of being able to resume your regular duties-- they’re not good.”      

Levi had thought as much. He knew it when he saw the white of his own bone speared through his flesh. “I’m used to shit chances,” he said.

The doctor grinned, a quick flick of his lips. “Yeah, I figured. That’s a good attitude to have.”

He bent down to shuffle through his beaten up bag and Levi took the opportunity to get a proper look at the man. He was tall, his skin olive and his hair dark brown. His hair curled around his ears and hung in front of his eyes, which were gold like newly minted coins. He wasn’t bulky like some of the soldiers Levi knew, but there was a hard-earned strength to his frame unlike the other civilian doctors Levi had met, who spent their energy on books rather than labor. When he prodded Levi with his fingers, Levi could feel the rough callouses adorning them. Where in the world had they rustled up this doctor, assuming he really was one?

“Who are you, exactly?” Levi asked.

“Dr. Yeager,” the man told him, glancing up from his bag with his golden eyes. “I work here in Trost.”

“Aren’t you pretty young to be a doctor?” The man looked around Mikasa’s age, twenty, despite the lines worn around his eyes. Mikasa had those too.

Dr. Yeager arched a thick eyebrow and straightened up. He held his hands out for Levi’s examination. “Before you, I had my hands in the guts of one of your fifteen year-old soldiers. Her friend told me she was knocked out of the sky by a Titan, got impaled on some rubble. Her friend told me she was lucky. She’ll be luckier still if she makes through the night.”

Point taken. “How does someone your age even become a doctor though?”

“That,” Dr. Yeager said, digging through his bag again, “is a long story.”  
“I’m not going anywhere.” And he could use the distraction. Whatever medicine he swallowed earlier was wearing off, slowly but surely.

“No, but I am,” Dr. Yeager said, nodding his head towards the patients lying all around them. He pulled out another bottle of liquid, different from before, which he uncorked and began pouring out into a spoon. “And you need to rest, not listen to torrid tales. You lost a lot of blood, never mind that mangled leg of yours.”

Said leg felt like it was on fire, so he was in no position to argue. When Dr. Yeager proffered the spoon to him, Levi drank it without a word. Dr. Yeager helped him gulp down a cup of water too before Levi sank into his pillow again, dizzy, tired, and aching. He closed his eyes and listened as Dr. Yeager packed up to move on to his next patient. Reality started to slip away again, though it was sleep rising up to meet him this time, not unconsciousness. “Thanks,” he mumbled, half into his pillow.

Dr. Yeager stilled. After a moment, he pressed those gentle, calloused fingers against Levi’s shoulder. “Sleep well, Levi.”

=====

Eighty-one percent.

“Multiple reports corroborated the sighting, so we-- hey, Levi, you listening?”

Hundreds of soldiers. Most still teenagers with grieving parents at home, others just a little older with children of their own waiting for their father to come back, their mother.

“Levi, do you need to take a break?”

Gunther. He had a baby born just this year, a little boy. Levi met the mother, held the child. He had earthy brown eyes like his father.

“Levi?” Mikasa curled her fingers around his wrist. The cut under her eye had healed into a neat scar, bright pink like a warning beacon in the distance. Levi realized his fists were clenched tight around the blanket and let go. Mikasa and Hange both watched him, concern plain on their faces. Levi hated it. He’d seen enough of it already.

“Did you catch any of that?” Hange asked, shifting to rearrange the reports they had piled across his bed.

Levi rubbed his temples. “Something about some big, ugly, hairy Titan?”

“Yeah,” Hange said. “Five different people have submitted reports saying they saw it, out in the west. Your squad would’ve been in the right position-- did you see it? The reports say it had hair all over its body and long arms.”

Levi tried to think back to that moment when he looked out to the west and realized how fucked they truly were, but all he could remember was the storm of Titans surrounding his squad from both sides, the carnage, the screams. “No. What does it matter?”

Hange twirled a pencil between their fingers, the other hand fiddling absently with the bolo tie hanging around their neck. “According to the reports, it wasn’t attacking or even approaching. Just… watching. And one report even-- where’s Private Tutuola’s report, Mikasa?”

Mikasa shuffled through the reports piled next to Levi’s un-injured leg and pulled out one, passing it to Hange.

“Thanks,” Hange said. They adjusted their glasses and then read aloud. “The hairy Titan pointed and I thought I saw it look down and talk to a Titan nearby. It seemed like it was in charge.”

“Talking,” Levi repeated. “Someone saw it talking?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time we heard something like that,” Hange reminded him.

Levi hadn’t forgotten Ilse Langnar’s desperate last notes, but he hadn’t dwelled on them either. They sounded to him like the delusions of a young woman rightfully frightened for her life. After all, no one else had witnessed a Titan speaking. Until now, apparently. “And it looked like it was in charge?”

“That’s what Private Tutuola wrote.”

“How could any Titan be in charge? They’re not-- they don’t _think_.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Mikasa interjected. Her voice was firm even as she got between her superior officers. “The Colossal Titan-- it appeared twice and always seemed to have the same goal: knock down the wall, let the Titans in. And that Armored Titan that smashed Wall Maria in 845, that was deliberate action too. And in 850, the Dancing Titan that went rogue and killed all those Titans in Trost. And the Female Titan--”

“--You can’t tell me the Female Titan didn’t think,” Hange jumped in. “You were there with me, Levi, you saw for yourself. It tried to lift that big rock, couldn’t, so then it stuffed itself into wall’s hole and-- and-- _crystallized_ itself, sealing the whole thing shut for good. If that’s not thinking, what is?”

Levi held up both hands. “Those were one-off incidents though, not the norm. Even if this hairy Titan--”

“--Beast Titan,” Hange said. “I’m naming it the Beast Titan.”

“Fine.” He pushed the word out between his tight teeth. “Even if this ‘Beast Titan’ is one of the freaks that are smarter than the others, how can it control the rest of the Titans? Are you saying all Titans have enough intelligence to follow orders?”

“All we’ve got is one report to gone on, so I don’t know,” Hange said. “Maybe--”

“What do we know?” Levi demanded. “Forget your damn pet theories, what do we know for sure? We lost nearly all of our people out there, good soldiers who thought they were on a routine mission-- why? What the fuck happened?”

“Levi,” Mikasa said, the syllables soft but unyielding all the same. “If you get worked up, the nurses are going to come throw us out.”

Levi huffed, but sat back into the stack of pillows behind him. Mikasa was right. He’d been transferred into the military hospital a week ago and spent most of that time either asleep or zoned out on painkillers. The pain was manageable enough today to go with only mild medicine that didn’t stuff his head full of clouds. But the nurses would undoubtedly swoop in and insist on his visitors leaving if they heard him shouting. They’d allowed Mikasa to haunt the ward for the last week since she was the only family member Levi had listed, but the nurses wouldn’t hesitate to remove her from his room.

“Sorry,” he told Hange because Hange was looking at him from behind their glasses like he’d struck them with his fist. “It’s not your fault. I’m just tired and sore and-- fuck, eighty-one percent, Hange?”

“I know,” Hange said glumly. “It’s the worst expedition we’ve had since the 74th.”

They’d lost Erwin and Mike both on the 74th, along with sixty-eight percent of their forces. It was purely personal but-- bad as this last expedition was, Levi can’t help but think that the 74th was worse.

Hange continued, pushing their glasses up the bridge of their nose. “What we do know-- or, at least what I’m certain of--is that we were betrayed.”

“...Betrayed,” Levi said. The word clung to his tongue, bitter as blood.

“Think about it,” Hange said. They glanced backwards at the closed door of Levi’s room, then lowered their voice. “All those Titans out there, waiting for us, surrounding us-- that couldn’t be a coincidence. The fact that they came and destroyed our supply line when we were so close to finishing it-- that can’t be coincidence either. Someone sold us out, someone who knew exactly where we were going to be and when. Probably someone who’d been on that exact, routine expedition before, someone who knew the lay of the land, the best place to assault our forces.”   

Levi sighed. He passed both hands over his face, scrubbing at his aching eyes. “Are you suggesting,” he said, “that one of our soldiers is somehow plotting with the Titans? What, with that Beast Titan head honcho of yours? You realize that sounds insane, right?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Hange insisted. “I just-- that couldn’t have been bad luck. And there’s so much we don’t know about the Titans. They could be capable of far more than we can imagine.”

With some effort, Levi dragged his face from his hands. Hange’s certainty rang in their eyes, the stern line of their mouth. Levi knew that what they were saying was true. It made him weary, deep in his bones. “So how are we going to catch this traitor?” he asked. “We don’t know what they want, aside from killing our soldiers and wrecking our supply line-- neither of which we can use as bait. How are we supposed to lure them out when we don’t know what they’re after?”

“We could--” Hange stopped, thought, then groaned. “I don’t know how to lure them,” they admitted. “So we’ll have to identify them instead. It’s most likely someone in the Survey Corps and there’s only so many of us left. We’ll find them.”

“Interviews?” Mikasa suggested.

Hange shook their head. “Better if no one realizes we’re looking.” They laid their hand over one of the paper piles. “I went over the debriefing reports, looking to see if anyone reported anything suspicious. There’s nothing. Tonight, I’ll go through all the pre-mission reports from the team leads and the supply inventories and the mail and--”

“The mail?” Levi cut in. “You don’t have time to do all that. You’re heading out tomorrow.” They needed to determine the extent of damage to the supply line, see what was intact, what was salvageable, and what was lost.

“I’m not leaving,” Mikasa announced, the set of her shoulders stubborn.

Levi turned on her. “You’re going. We’ve got hardly any officers left, you need to lead.”

“Cut it out,” Hange said. It was their Commander voice, heard rarely enough in private that both Mikasa and Levi froze. “Mikasa, he’s right, we need you. Levi, I’ll leave the mail here with you. You’ll need something to do while you’re laid up anyway. Got it?”

They both nodded. Hange beamed at them, then started gathering up all the documents strewn across Levi’s bed. “We keep this between the three of us, for now. If Nanaba recovers enough, get her in the loop too. And until this is all over, we need to be very, very careful.”

Hange looked directly at Levi as they said this. He raised his hands in protest. “Do I look like I’m mobile enough to get into any trouble?”

“That’s why we need to be careful.” On that note, Hange crammed the massive stack of papers into their satchel, shouldered the bag, and stood to leave.

“Hold on,” Levi said. “Have you ever heard of a Dr. Yeager?”

Hange paused, thinking. Beside Levi, Mikasa went still.

“Yeager...” Hange repeated. “I don’t think-- wait. Yes, a long time ago. He used to work in Shiganshina, so sometimes he’d see our soldiers when we came through. This was a years ago, before Maria fell, before you came to us, Levi. He was pretty famous, actually, cured some terrible disease that nearly wiped out the entire district.”

“The man I met was too young for that,” Levi said.

“Then I have no idea. His son, maybe? Why are you asking?”

“Dr. Yeager was the one who fixed my leg. He was...” Levi trailed off, trying to find the right word.

“Handsome?” Hange suggested, eyebrows waggling wildly beneath their bangs.

“Weird,” Levi finished, though Hange’s guess wasn’t wrong. He thought of the doctor’s fingers on his shoulders, his soft _Sleep well, Levi._ “It was almost like he knew me or something.”

Hange rolled their eyes. “Most people know you, Levi. You’re famous. And with Mikasa hovering around you, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who you are. You’re both pretty recognizable.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Dr. Yeager knowing his name wasn’t any kind of surprise. Levi knew he was recognizable, was used to all the awkward reactions he got from civilians. The weirdness was more… everything about the man, from his age and build down to the familiarity of his touch, his words. Levi didn’t know how to explain this though. “Never mind.”

When Hange finally left, Levi turned to Mikasa, who was examining the sheets on Levi’s bed, her face pale like the cloth under her gaze. “What’s wrong?”

“I-- that name, Dr. Yeager. I’m not sure, I only met him twice when I was young, but I think that was the name of the doctor who used to come treat us. We lived far out, so he would come to us.”

She was rambling. It wasn’t not like her. Levi prompted her with a gentle, “Oh?”

Mikasa nodded, brushing a fall of hair back behind one ear. “Yes. He-- he was there, that day.” She looked up at him, eyes dark, wet. “When the men came. They killed my father, then they killed him. My mother grabbed me and we ran, but… they caught us.”

Levi knew how the rest of the story went, more or less. He didn’t push her when she stopped, just stared down at the foot of his bed. Mikasa used the small moment of privacy to sniff and wipe her jacket sleeve across her nose. Levi pretended not to notice.

They sat in quiet for a bit, as they often did. After a while, Mikasa chuckled, the noise strange coming from her throat. Levi looked at her. She shook her head, shrugged.

“It’s just-- Dr. Yeager, he told me that he meant to bring his son to meet me that day, since we were the around the same age. But his son was sick and couldn’t come.” She turned to face the window, staring at the cloud just barely visible through the view. “I think about that day all the time. How it might have gone different. How different the world might have been.”

Levi said nothing. A million different things could have changed the world at some point, but all they had right now was the world they were in. He looked out the window too and, together, they watched the cloud drift slowly by.

=====

Mikasa was forced to leave early the next morning. She needed to pack and prepare for the expedition, having put the task off for several days already. Levi wasn’t alone long though. Not five minutes after she left, Hange banged into his room, their arms full with a small, locked wooden chest and two people in tow behind them.

“Here’s the stuff you wanted from your room,” Hange said, dropping the chest beside his bed. It clattered loudly on the floor. When Levi opened his mouth to protest ever giving Hange permission to snoop around his quarters, they pressed a key into his hand and added, “ _As discussed_.”

“Right, of course,” Levi said. He eyed the box, which had to be stuffed full with hundreds of letters, and curled his fingers around the key to its lock. “And who’s that?” he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the people hovering just beyond the doorway’s edge.

“Your bodyguards,” Hange answered snappily.

“I don’t need bodyguards,” Levi hissed. He’d tolerated Mikasa’s constant hovering only because it was impossible to send her away. “I’m not defenseless.”

“No, but you sure can’t run.” Levi bristled and Hange waved a hand at him. “It’s just a formality. You’re too high-ranking to just leave out here alone. Make them run errands for you or scratch your back or whatever.” Hange’s tone was breezy and carefree, but Levi recognized the sharp glint in their eyes. It sure wasn’t a formality and the Commander wasn’t budging one step on the issue.

Levi glanced down at the chest again, then tucked the key into the hem of his pants. “Remember that stack of paperwork you left me?” he asked, glaring at Hange. “How am I supposed to get work done with people buzzing around all the time?”

“It’ll be fine,” Hange reassured him. “I picked people you should be able to deal with.”

So Hange didn’t suspect either of them, but they were still doing this secretive dance. That wasn’t reassuring in the least.

Hange stuck their head out into the hallway and told the pair of soldiers to come in. The first was a stern-faced woman in a Garrison uniform. She looked nearly old enough to be Levi’s mother, surely on the verge of retirement. She saluted Levi respectfully, though no more than necessary.

“Lieutenant Wilfrid Rizzo at your service, sir,” she said. “I understand you’re not keen on the idea of being under guard. I can assure you that I do not ‘buzz.’ In fact, hopefully you’ll hardly notice me at all.”

Her tone was mild, but Levi felt the slight sting of chastisement all the same. He’d never been well defended against older women.

“At ease,” he said. Wilfrid dropped her arms, but lost none of her formal posture. “I’ll endeavor not to make your job any harder than it has to be. Likely, it’ll be fairly dull.” It wasn’t not quite an apology, but it was something.

“I prefer dull,” Wilfrid noted. She didn’t smile.

He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or worried that she was from the Garrison. Her position made her unlikely to be their traitor, but Levi only held slightly more trust in the Garrison than he did the Military Police. Wilfrid, at least, didn’t seem like the type to shirk duties-- unlike several of the Garrison officers Levi knew.

The second soldier was Survey Corps. He was tall— taller even than Mike had been, but leaner than him. He glanced at Wilfrid nervously as she stepped aside, but didn’t move until Hange clapped him on the shoulder.

“Relax, you’re fine,” Hange said, pushing him forward a little. From the look of the sweat beading on his brow, Hange’s words didn’t ease the man’s nerves at all. Well, hopefully his terror would keep him well out of Levi’s way.  

“Captain Levi doesn’t bite. Not much, anyway.” Hange shot Levi a glance, grinning. “Don’t let him fool you. He graduated third in the 104th, same class as Mikasa. She recommended him actually, since I said she couldn’t stay with you.”

Well, that was slightly reassuring.

The twitchy soldier saluted Levi, his fists firm despite his visible reluctance. “Sergeant Bertolt Hoover, formerly of squad six,” he said.

“Ah. My condolences, soldier.” Levi had read the reports. Squad six had been completely wiped out, with the exception of a sole survivor. He found it hard to believe that the survivor was this sweaty guy, though he knew that skill and mental fortitude often had little to do with surviving expeditions. Well, perhaps the recent horror he’d seen accounts for some of his nerves. Maybe Hange picked him because they figured he could use a break before getting back into the field.

Bertolt dipped his head in acknowledgement of Levi’s condolences, then stepped back out of the center of attention. Hange filled the void with ease, patting Levi lightly on the plaster cast that had replaced his splint that morning. “We’ll all be back soon enough,” they said. “Try not to break the other leg before then, all right?”

“Try not to die,” Levi countered. Hange acknowledged his goodbye with a grim flash of teeth before turning on their heel. And then Hange was gone, leaving him alone with two strangers, a chest full of private mail, and the threat of a traitor whose aims were just as unknown as their face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which the "I just happened to be in the neighborhood" excuse is as transparent as usual but Levi remains oblivious anyway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added the Manga Spoilers tag since it occurred to me that not everyone was frantically reading the manga after the first season ended years ago like me, hahaha. (Not to mention there might be totally new fans this season.)
> 
> Anyway, here's the second chapter relatively quickly! The third chapter will likely take longer than this one did, but we'll see. I might be extra speedy for once, who knows?

Bed rest didn’t agree with Levi and never had. By the end of his third full day of relatively un-medicated and very painful consciousness, every nurse in the military hospital surely hated him. He also suspected that Wilfrid and Bertolt thoroughly regret accepting this assignment. Or maybe not, since the two soldiers spent most of their alternating shifts outside his room, standing around and looking intimidating. It was probably quite boring, but Levi still found himself jealous. He couldn’t even stand unaided yet.

What he could do was lie in bed and read carefully through each letter in the chest. It was slow going. Levi wasn’t a good reader to begin with and the messy handwriting scrawled across most of the papers didn’t help. Not to mention he had to whisk the letters out of sight whenever a nurse or Wilfrid or Bertolt came in to check on him. He kept the chest tucked half under his bed, locked, and only took out one letter at a time, which he hid beneath his pillow or down his shirt when he was in a hurry. Once he’d read the letter from beginning to end three times-- looking for code words, ciphers, any kind of innuendo-- he put it back with its fellows and took out a new one.

For all its importance, it was tedious, tiresome work. There were four hundred and forty one letters. One hundred and ninety-eight sent from soldiers and two hundred and fifty-two from friends and family, all from the last two weeks. Levi had counted them all. The mail hadn’t distributed before the expedition, so Hange had made sure it was held, making some public excuse about the letters being lost in all the chaos that followed the disaster. It was believable enough. Most people wouldn’t be suspicious enough to guess the truth.

Levi didn’t like reading them. They were mostly the same-- small weekly updates interspersed with  _ We all miss you  _ and  _ I promise I won’t die.  _ The tiny text made his eyes ache and the worried words made his stomach sick.

Levi was staring at-- not reading, no-- a letter from a fresh recruit to their little sister when someone knocked on his door. It was Wilfrid’s quick, sharp raps, so he swiftly folded up the letter and stuck it under his pillow before calling for her to come in. 

She didn’t enter, but instead stuck her head through the doorway. “There’s a Dr. Yeager here to see you.”

Levi couldn’t have heard correctly. “Yeager?”

The man himself appeared at the door, battered black bag and all. “I’m not here to shove another bone back into your leg, if you’re worried about that.”

Levi waved at Wilfrid to let Yeager in and close the door behind him. “Why are you here then?”

“I was working nearby, finished up early.” Dr. Yeager claimed the seat Mikasa favored before her departure, setting his bag carefully down on the floor. “Figured you could use some company.”

“Why?”

“The Survey Corps is gone and you strike me as the worst kind of patient for bed rest.”

There it was again, that weird, easy familiarity. Levi narrowed his eyes. “You say that like you know me.”

Dr. Yeager folded his hands in his lap, all innocence. “Most soldiers are like that and I’ve treated plenty of soldiers. Besides, who hasn’t heard of Captain Levi?”

Levi didn’t buy it. He let the doctor know with his silence and the flat, unyielding line of his mouth. Finally, Dr. Yeager’s casual demeanor broke. A light flush rose to his face. It gave his olive skin a pleasant undertone like warm tea.

“All right, I’ve maybe followed your career pretty closely,” Dr. Yeager admitted.

“Maybe,” Levi repeated.

Dr. Yeager scratched the back of his neck where the curly ends of overgrown hair rested. “And you were maybe my hero as a kid.”

“No one in the Survey Corps is anyone’s hero,” Levi scoffed. He knew what civilians thought of them. Resource-wasting, reckless failures at best and suicidal psychos at worst. It used to infuriate him, not understanding how anyone could overlook how important their work,  _ Erwin’s _ work, was. With Erwin gone-- and with him, most of their best plans-- it was harder not to agree with popular opinion. 

“You were mine,” Dr. Yeager said, stubborn. “Still are, though Ackerman is giving you a run for your money.”

His surprise allowed a reluctant chuckle to escape. “Whatever,” Levi said, more than ready to change the subject. “If you’re here to entertain me, what news is there of Trost?”

Dr. Yeager regaled him for a while with the latest local political scandals and tales of the church’s most recent bullshit. When he finally ran out of gossip-- and he seemed to have plenty of it rattling around in his head-- he said apropos of nothing, “”People are getting nervous. I have some contact with soldiers, so people are always asking if I know anything. I don’t, of course, but they don’t know who else to ask.”

He shrugged. Levi followed the movement, the even up and down of his strong shoulders beneath his winter coat. It took Levi a moment to actually register what the man said. 

“Wait-- nervous about what? What are they asking you?”

Dr. Yeager squinted at Levi as if he’d asked something incredibly thoughtless. “...It’s been five years,” he said. “845, Shiganshina. Lost. 850, Trost. Saved only by some luck no one understands. And now it’s 855. So... people are getting nervous.”    

Levi hadn’t given any thought to the date. For someone in his position, every year was just as deadly as any other. He woke up each day to the knowledge that it could easily be his last. 

Most people weren’t like him though. Levi considered Dr. Yeager. He didn’t look nervous. But Levi couldn’t help but remember what Hange and Mikasa told him. “You’re from Shiganshina, aren’t you? You were there in 845.”

“Yes,” the doctor conceded easily. “How did you know?”

“You have a bit of a Maria accent.”

Dr. Yeager laughed, those damn broad shoulders of his shaking gently. When he finished, he leaned forward and deliberately thickened his accent so that the syllables leaned against one another like drunkards stumbling home. “That can’t be all. Besides, Maria was big. I could be from anywhere. Shiganshina is actually the least likely place, considering how many died there.” He paused, eying Levi, and then said, “You’ve been asking around about me.”

“Not much else to do while I’m flat on my back.”

The corner of Dr. Yeager’s mouth quirked as if he was biting his tongue. “And what did you hear?”

“Not much.” Levi stopped, then decided to continue anyway. “About you, anyway. Your father on the other hand...” he trailed off, watching Dr. Yeager’s expression shift from amusement to careful composure. “It’s true then? You’re Dr. Yeager’s son?”

“Dr. Grisha Yeager. I’m Eren.” Eren straightened up, crossed one leg over the other, and changed the subject. “Something  _ is _ happening, isn’t it? That last expedition-- you haven’t put out any announcement yet, but I saw the results. The only word for that is disaster.”

“...Something happened,” Levi said, a token acknowledgement. It’s all he could really say on the subject since the rest was classified. “I don’t know about your five year theory, but if you’re scared, leave. A man in your profession doesn’t have to stay in a border town if he doesn’t want to. They’re always wanting more doctors in Sheena.”

Eren just grinned grimly and shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.” As if to make a lie of his own words, he got to his feet and collected his bag from the floor. “I’ve got another appointment to get to, so I’ll stop bothering you. Just figured I’d swing by and make sure the doctors here hadn’t botched my hard work.”

The words slipped from Levi’s lips before he realized what he was saying. “You’re not bothering me.”

Eren grinned again, nothing grim about it this time. He glanced at the door, then took a step towards Levi’s bed. He leaned down, close enough that Levi could make out the faint scent of medicinal herbs clinging to Eren’s clothes and skin. For one wild, jarring moment, Levi thought Eren was going to kiss him.

He didn’t. Eren stuck his hand under Levi’s pillow and pushed the letter farther beneath it. “Might want to hide this better,” he murmured. 

And with that, Eren left.

====

He was back again two days later, this time shuffling a deck of cards in his hands. “I’ve got a couple hours free,” he said. “And you’re not going anywhere, are you?”

Levi sure wasn’t. He was permitted to get out of bed only to relieve himself and-- twice a day-- for short walks up and down the hall with a nurse and either Wilfrid or Bertolt watching his every step. Levi couldn’t put any weight on the broken leg, so he hobbled along with a pair of wooden crutches that were too tall for him and dug painfully into his armpits no matter how he adjusted them.

Eren stuck his head out into the hall and dragged the soldier standing watch inside. It was Bertolt for this shift and he stammered a few protests before finally sinking into a chair, his back hunched over as though that would make him any less enormous. 

Eren dealt out the cards and they began a game of rummy, using Levi’s lumpy mattress as a tabletop for their draw pile and runs. Levi and Bertolt were quiet-- Levi because he was used to maintaining a sharp focus for card games, even when nothing was at stake, and Bertolt because that seemed to be his nature. Eren chattered easily though, spinning tales about anonymous patients as he rearranged his hand of cards and laid down runs. He won the first game and successfully drew Levi into conversation since by now Levi had plenty of stories about the doctors and nurses at the military hospital. 

Finally, Bertolt broke his silence too.

“I’ve heard you are from Shiganshina,” he said to Eren, eyes locked firmly on his cards. “That you were there when the Wall fell.”

Levi wondered how exactly Bertolt heard that before he realized Wilfrid must’ve told him. She had been on shift when Eren first came by and their conversation hadn’t exactly been quiet. Most of it, anyway. 

“I was,” Eren said. He glanced up at both of them and saw that they were still waiting on details. With a sigh, he started reciting a story Levi was certain he’d told dozens of times. “I was home with my mother when suddenly the earth shook. There was this terrible noise, like thunder. I ran outside to see what was going on. And there was that great, ugly Colossal Titan, its head just barely clearing the wall. Before anyone knew what was going on, it kicked the Wall in. Our house was destroyed by the rubble, so I had to drag my mother out. A friend of mine went and got a Garrison soldier to help. We escaped on the last boat, right when that Armored Titan came and blasted a hole in Wall Maria.”

Eren slapped three cards down, spreading them out into another run. As he discarded a card, Eren flicked his eyes up to meet Bertolt’s. “Your turn.”

Bertolt grimaced and re-focused his eyes on the cards in his hand. Still, he answered gamely enough. “I… the village I’m from is deep in the mountains southeast of Wall Maria. So we didn’t get word-- we didn’t know the wall was broken until the Titans came.” He drew a card and added it to his hand, fumbling. “The livestock made a loud racket. And then… I’d never heard the ground rumble like that before. It got louder and louder and I realized it was footsteps. I went to open a window and-- after that… um, I don’t really remember. Everyone was panicking. But me and a friend got on horses and we escaped”

With a shake of his head, Bertolt discarded. He turned to Levi. “...Your turn.”

“I don’t remember much.”

“The Survey Corps went out on an expedition,” Eren supplied. Both Bertolt and Levi stared at him silently until he flushed. “What? I told you I was a fan. I watched you all come back in that day.”  
  
“Yes… that was Shadis’ last expedition. He turned command over to Erwin that day.” Levi picked through his hand. It was full of crummy cards, but he suspected Eren would win this round even if Levi had something better to work with. “That part I remember well enough. The rest of the day was just… chaos. We fought until night fell, but there wasn’t much we could do.” Levi made his play without looking up at the other two. “This is shitty talk for a card game, you know.”

They changed the topic without any fuss. Eren won that game and the next as well before Levi finally snatched a victory out from under him. By the time dinner approached, Eren had won four games, Levi two, and Bertolt none. To his credit, Bertolt wasn’t a sore loser. He accepted his utter defeat with just a quick nod of his head before jumping out of his seat to wait outside for Wilfrid, who would be coming soon to relieve him. 

Eren lingered, gathering up the cards. “Didn’t mean to stay so long. I know you’re busy.” He shot a pointed glance at the bottom of Levi’s bed, where the chest jutted out just enough for Levi to grab it.

“I’m really not,” Levi insisted. It was the truth. He’d finished reading through all the letters by then with nothing to show for it. The closest thing to treachery Levi spotted was a soldier swearing he was going to kill Levi because he made him muck out the stable for punishment. Considering that Levi hadn’t even recognized the soldier’s name and the fact that he was whining to his mother about it, Levi hadn’t taken the threat very seriously.

He was re-reading the letters, of course, even more slowly this time just in case he missed something. But he didn’t think Hange was going to find their traitor in those pages.  
  
“So I should come by some more is what you’re saying.” Eren smiled wickedly.

Levi did not like that expression. It did strange things to his stomach. “I didn’t say that at all.”  
  
Eren just laughed. He sailed out of the room just as the nurses bustled in, nodding politely at them before disappearing into the hall.

Levi scowled at the dinner the nurses brought. He’d never had the luxury of being a picky eater, but the sight of the carefully proportioned hospital food turned his stomach even more than Eren’s smile dd. He made himself eat anyway, shoveling the food in quickly so he didn’t have to taste it much.

With dinner out of the way, the nurses deigned to let Levi take a stroll through the hospital halls. Levi crammed the hateful crutches under his arms, gritted his teeth, and took his fucking stroll under Wilfrid’s watchful gaze. 

He’d thought he had made some progress over the last couple days, but the loop around the hospital was harder than ever. By the time Levi reached his room again, he was dizzy, sweating profusely, and dead tired-- too tired to protest when the nurse on duty suggested he go to sleep early. He drifted off fitfully, hot under his covers despite the freezing temperatures outside and the hospital’s poor heating.

He didn’t sleep long.

Some time in the night, he woke to a terrible churning deep in his gut. His hands were clammy and his arms trembled so badly that he slipped twice while trying to push himself up. Levi just barely managed to lean over the side of the bed before vomiting.

It wouldn’t stop coming. He couldn’t stop--

His retching brought Bertolt bursting into his room. Two nurses soon followed, a doctor on their heels. Everyone was yammering at once, too loud for Levi’s pounding head. Too loud. Too many people.

Two things occurred to Levi as he struggled to choke breaths out from his burning throat. First, he was in a military hospitals. And, second-- his vision went spotty, his heart fluttering fast-- Hange’s traitor was almost certainly military.

As he lost grip on his consciousness, one word flared red-hot in Levi’s mind.

_ Poison. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Levi isn't dead yet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the longer wait on this chapter, but the good news is that we are already approximately halfway through. (I mentioned that this was going to be fairly short, right?) Anyway, enjoy.

The next few days were hazy, but Levi was certain of one thing: he was not dead yet. 

Time shifted in fits and bursts as he passed in an out of fever dreams. He remembered hands on him, the pinch of a needle breaking the skin of his arm, doctors and nurses murmuring to each other-- or perhaps to Levi, he couldn’t be sure. Sometimes he opened his eyes to find Bertolt standing guard in the corner or Wilfrid folded in the chair beside Levi’s bed and working on some embroidery. One time, he thought Eren was in the room with him, reading aloud from some old book, but his mind probably conjured that scene all on its own.

Or maybe not. When Levi’s fever finally broke for good, Eren was there with his fingers wrapped carefully around Levi’s wrist. His fingers were rough with callouses and old scars. Levi’s head was aching and spinning at the same time, so it took him a moment to realize that Eren was checking his pulse.

“You work here now?” he asked, the words rasping in his dry throat.

If Eren was surprised by him suddenly being awake and talking, it didn’t show. He didn’t argue when Levi pushed himself upright either-- just stuffed an extra pillow behind Levi’s back and passed him a tall glass of water.

“I won’t be working here much longer,” Eren said. “The outbreak’s been contained and most everyone is on the road to recovery now.”

Levi choked on his next sip of water and coughed until it all went down. “Outbreak?”

“Mm. First major outbreak of the Shiganshina plague on record since it hit the refugee camps in 847.”

Levi remembered hearing something about an illness ravaging the camps, but he hadn’t realized it was the same plague from Shiganshina all those years ago.

“That’s why you’re here,” Levi said. “Because of your father.”

“Yes. Of course, I don’t even remember the Shiganshina epidemic, but I do still have some of his research and notes.” The corner of Eren’s mouth quirked up into something that was too tired to be called a smile. “You can thank my friend Armin for digging my father’s journals out of the wreckage before we fled Shiganshina. I thought he’d gone mad at the time, but he always was good about thinking ahead, even in the middle of a crisis. So fortunately, we didn’t lose hundreds this time.”

“...How many did we lose?” Levi asked.

“One. Nanaba.”

Fuck.  _ Fuck. _ Her chances had never been good. Not many people came back from a gaping gut wound like she had, but Nanaba was a fierce fighter and he’d thought that if anyone could-- in the end, they were all human though, weren’t they?

Eren squeezed his shoulder and took the now empty glass from him. “I’m sorry. She went in her sleep, in the end, which was the best we could hope for her.”

Levi nodded. Eren squeezed him one more time before lifting his hand away. Levi watched dully as Eren began cleaning up the various items he had strewn over Levi’s bed and putting them away in his black bag.

“I thought I’d been poisoned,” Levi told him, more to change the subject than anything else.

Eren paused in the middle of his packing up. “...Do you have reason to think someone might try to poison you?”

“I’ve always had enemies,” Levi said, which both was an answer and wasn’t.

“Well, I can assure you it wasn’t poison. And as far as I know, nobody has figured out a way to deliberately infect someone with the plague-- we’re not even completely sure how it spreads.” Eren snapped his bag closed. “So you’re probably as safe as can be.”

“I’d feel a lot safer if I could walk,” Levi said wryly. And if his guts didn’t feel like they’d been turned inside out.

“That’ll take a lot more time. For now, you’re at least well enough for visitors again, so long as you take it easy. I’ll tell the nurses they can let Ackerman in.”

That made Levi sit up even straighter against his pillow stack, though Levi’s stomach careened in protest. “They’re back?”

Erem smiled for real this time. “Safe and sound.”

 

=====

 

Mikasa was back, but Hange had apparently already returned and left again. They’d found unaccounted for maneuvering gear and rifles from Sheena in their review of the inventory and departed for the capital immediately to investigate.

“I don’t think it’s anything,” Mikasa said. “But we’re short on leads, so we might as well check up on everything. Did you find anything in the letters?”

“No,” Levi admitted. “But I need to look through them again. I could’ve missed something, especially since we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

He leaned over the edge of his bed to grab the chest, but became dizzy when the blood suddenly rushed to his brain. Levi froze, worried he was about to throw up again.

Mikasa pushed him backward until he was flat on his back. “You need to rest.”

“I’ve been doing fucking nothing but resting,” Levi said once it seemed safe to open his mouth.

“No, you’ve been dying,” Mikasa snapped. “Do you even realize how sick you were? Did you know the Shiganshina plague can kill people in just a couple of days if it's not treated?”

Mikasa was dangerous like this, at the intersection of horror and fury. Levi proceeded with caution. “I know that.” It was the truth-- he’d asked the nurses about the Shiganshina plague after Hange mentioned it in connection to Eren’s father and they’d told him the basics. “But I’m fine now.”

Mikasa snorted, then sniffed a little. Her dark eyes were wet, almost black.

“All right, maybe not fine. But I feel better. And Eren cleared me for visitors, so I have to be better.”

“Eren, is it?” Mikasa muttered, sweeping her sleeve over her face in small, angry swipes.

“He visited me a couple times while you guys were gone.”

Mikasa’s lips flattened into something that wasn’t quite suspicion, but almost there. “That’s a big coincidence, isn’t it? The man who probably knows more about the plague than anyone else alive just happened to be hanging  around the site of an outbreak.”

“It usually hits places with a lot of sick people-- this is a hospital,” Levi retorted. “And it’s not like it only shows up where he is, there’s case records all throughout the Walls. So I’d call it good luck, not a big fucking coincidence.”

He expected Mikasa to wave him off with a  _ Whatever _ , but instead she folded her arms over her chest, leaned back, and eyed him silently until Levi finally broke and demanded, “What?”

“Hange was right, he  _ is _ handsome. Tall and broad, but not too tall and broad. Confident and I’m assuming competent since he didn’t mess up your leg any more and you’re not dead.”

“Your point?”

Mikasa rolled her eyes. “You have a type, Levi.”

Levi didn’t quite sputter, but it was a close call. “I’m not-- I’m not  _ stupid _ , Mikasa. You think I survived this long by following my dick around?”

“I’m going to go meet him-- properly,” Mikasa declared, standing up. She ignored his protests as she strode out the room.

 

======

 

Eren had evidently finished his rounds and left, so Mikasa’s attempt to track him down and interrogate him failed. Her defeat didn’t last long though because Eren returned the next afternoon-- for a social call, not a medical checkup-- and Mikasa was, of course, parked beside Levi’s bed.

“I haven’t had a chance to introduce myself,” she said, sticking out a hand and perfectly polite. “I’m Mikasa Ackerman.”

Eren knew exactly who she was, but he didn’t mention it. “Eren Yeager,” he returned, shaking her hand briskly. His only reaction to Mikasa’s crushing grip was a slight pinch between his brows. He didn't rub away the red marks she left behind when she finally released him.

Mikasa went on the offensive right away. “So do you follow-up on all your patients like this? Why have you been hanging around?”

“Curiosity, mostly,” Eren said, not missing a beat. “And I know how boring it can be when you’re laid up and can’t move around.”

“Speaking of,” Levi broke in. “I’m going for a walk.” The hospital doctors had cleared him to limp along the halls again on his crutches, so long as he stopped if he got too tired. He lugged his heavy, casted leg off of the mattress and stuck the dreaded crutches under his arms.

He waved one of the crutches at Mikasa and Eren, who were blocking the doorway with their posturing. “Move it.”

They let him pass. Wilfrid was on guard outside. She nodded at him, then checked that Mikasa and Eren were following him before settling back against the wall again. Levi’s pride bristled at the need for an escort, but it couldn’t be helped.

What little progress Levi had made at staggering along had been wiped away by his brush with the plague. Levi was sweating and biting back curses by the time he reached the end of the first corridor. The coarse words came falling out when he cleared the second hallway, but he ignored his aching muscles and pushed ahead until he’d finally finished a full lap around the floor. He started on another, but had to lean against the wall when his vision started going spotty.

“That’s enough for now,” he heard Eren say. Mikasa steered Levi towards what toward out to be chair and Levi collapsed into it, his broken leg jutting out.

“You need to listen to your body,” Eren admonished him. “If it’s telling you it’s time to stop, then it’s time to stop. Otherwise you’ll just end up hurting yourself more.”

“I’m never going to walk again if I pussyfoot around,” Levi spat when some of his breath had returned to him.

“You’re going to walk,” Eren shot back. “You’re walking  _ now _ . You have no idea how lucky you are to be doing that much.”

His tone was sharp like nothing Levi had heard come out him before. Levi looked from Eren’s tight fists to his taut expression and thought,  _ What the fuck? _

“...Thank you for setting my leg,” Levi tried, since he had no other idea where Eren’s anger might be coming from besides Levi’s seeming ingratitude. But Eren just hunched up his shoulders and stalked away.

Levi waited until he was out of earshot before turning on Mikasa. “What’d you say to him?”

“Nothing to set him off,” Mikasa said. “That was all you.”

“Then what did I do?”

Mikasa hummed noncommittally. “I don’t know. But I like him.”

 

======

 

Eren didn’t come the next day, nor the next. Hange returned from Sheena long enough to update Levi on the situation--  _ all dead ends, check the letters again but I’m going to start brainstorming ways to draw the traitor out, you think about it too _ \-- before they and Mikasa left once more on another expedition. 

Levi was sick of the damn letters. But he pulled the chest back out and started searching them again, word by word. He was beginning to think that they were all too paranoid and there was no traitor, just a bad twist of fate. Or maybe there was a traitor, but they’d been among the hundreds that died in the massacre and would therefore never be found out. Or maybe--

Fuck. Levi wished he could talk to Erwin. Erwin would know. If not, he’d at least be able to think of a way to find out. But Erwin was dead. Everyone who’d made up the Survey Corpswhen Levi joined was dead, except Hange. And so many who’d joined since then were dead too. Everyone would keep dying if they couldn’t ever find a way out of this hell. It’d always been a distant dream, but it seemed further away than ever as Levi sat in his hospital bed, wrung dry.

He wondered when it would be his time to die.

Someone knocked on his door. Levi muttered an acknowledgement and Eren slipped in. There was snow melting on the shoulders of his overcoat and in his hair. Levi hadn’t even noticed that it was snowing outside.

Eren nodded at him. “Are you done hiding that then?”

Levi blinked and drew his eyes away from the drop of water that was currently sliding down Eren’s neck. “What?”

Eren pointed. Levi looked down and realized that the chest of letters was sitting open on his mattress, papers strewn all around him. Panic surged in his chest, but he quickly pressed it back down. Eren wasn’t under suspicion, wasn’t even in the military. He’d clearly already known something about the chest and the letters, but hadn’t asked about it. And besides, Mikasa had said that she liked Eren. She didn’t grant approval to many people.

“I guess so,” Levi said slowly. He looked back to Eren, trying to determine if he was still angry, but Eren just shrugged out of his coat and folded it up like nothing like had happened.

“Can I?” Eren asked. He waved one hand over the letters beside Levi’s casted leg. When Levi nodded, Eren picked up the one closest to him and unfolded it. “Letters home?”

“And letters from home. We’re looking… we were betrayed. We think so, anyway. That bad expedition, Hange thinks that someone on the inside had to have betrayed us.”

“So you think they might’ve written about it? Or someone wrote to them about it?”

“Not outright. I’ve read them all already, there’s no confessions. So we’re looking for ciphers, hidden messages, innuendo, anything.”

Eren frowned down at the letter. Then he shifted the chest aside so that he could sit on Levi’s bed. The chair was right there in its usual place, but Eren folded his long legs underneath himself on the mattress. It was a good thing Levi was so short, he thought, or else there wouldn’t have been enough room for Eren and his long legs.

It was also a good thing Mikasa wasn’t here or else she would tease him mercilessly for the way Levi couldn’t stop staring at Eren at the end of his bed, his hair still damp from the snow outside.

“Want some help?” Eren asked. “I’ve got some experience breaking ciphers.”

Levi cleared his throat and snatched up the nearest letter to direct his gaze on. “A fresh set of eyes couldn’t hurt.”

 

=====

 

Eren’s focus was unnerving. 

His coin-gold eyes had a way of narrowing in on each line on the page, going down one by one until he reached the end. When nurses passed by outside, he didn’t seem to hear the click of their footsteps at all, nor did he twitch when Levi shifted around to reach for a new letter or dig in the chest. Eren didn’t move at all, except to pick up a new letter and occasionally bite down on his lower lip.

Levi should have been spending more time looking at the letters and less time looking at Eren’s mouth, but he’d already read the letters many times over. The chances of him finding something new now were abysmal.

And Eren was distracting.

So he was watching closely when Eren flipped a page over and suddenly straightened his back.

“What is it?” Levi asked, facing away slightly so it wouldn't be too obvious that he'd been staring.

“Maybe nothing,” Eren muttered. But his brows were creased and his teeth were biting firmly down on his lip. It sure didn’t look like nothing.

Eren turned the paper back over again and his frown deepened. Then he sprang off of the bed, shoved his arms through his coat, and tucked the letter and it envelope into one of the coat’s pockets. “I need to check something,” Eren said. “I need to be sure before-- I’ll be back soon,” he promised.

“Hold on,” Levi said, trying to slide his broken leg off of the bed without spilling papers everywhere. “What--” 

But Eren was out the door before Levi could even stand.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Levi is not going on a date, all right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE, FOR REAL, READ THIS: If you are an anime-only fan, I should warn you that this chapter is when we start getting into some pretty big manga-only-so-far spoilers. So if you are trying to stay spoiler-free, this is where you should get off the train. 
> 
> NOT SO IMPORTANT NOTE: Oh thank god, I finally finished this chapter. I'd like to say that I will have the next chapter out faster, but that would probably be a lie... But anyway, I am tired of looking at this chapter and picking over it, so I am setting it free on the internet even though I know I will find a dozen problems with it tomorrow. Sorry.

True to his word, Eren was back soon. He’d barely been gone half an hour before he came bursting back into Levi’s room, panting as though he’d been sprinting the entire time. He had a thick book in one hand and some sort of large, folded contraption tucked under the opposite arm.

Out in the hall, Wilfrid asked, “Is everything all right, Dr. Yeager?”

“Fine,” Eren gasped out. “Just-- just wanted to catch Levi before it got to be too late.”

Wilfrid peered into Levi’s room at near-empty water pitcher on his bedside table. “Should I ask the nurses to bring more water?”

“No. Thank you, but I won’t be staying long,” Eren said. He closed the door as politely as one could with their foot, then strode over to Levi’s bed to relieve his burdens. The contraption he leaned against the foot of the bed; the book he handed to Levi. “I’ve got a page bookmarked, go there.”

Levi obliged him, carefully opening the book. It appeared to be a journal, its leather cover cracked and well-worn. The pages inside were yellow with age, the ink on them fading. Levi went to the page Eren had marked and frowned down at its scrawl. At first, he just thought the writer had extraordinarily bad penmanship. But no matter how he squinted or tilted the book, he couldn’t read it.

“What is this?”

Eren was busy gulping down the last of Levi’s water. When he finished, he wiped his mouth and said, “One of my father’s journals, the oldest one we rescued from the house.” He perched on the edge of the mattress, leaning over to run his finger down the page. “It’s a recipe, look.”

Now that he said it, Levi could see it-- the top of the page was occupied by short lines that must be a list of ingredients while the bottom contained longer lines-- instructions. Still, it was completely incomprehensible. “You can read this?”

Eren laughed, but it was a tight, awkward noise. “Not really. Me and my friend Armin have been trying to figure it out for years. We cracked the codes my father used in his other journals, but those were all in our language. This journal… it’s a different language entirely.”

_ A different language.  _

That wasn’t possible. There was only one language within the Walls-- all others had been abandoned and forgotten long ago. Not even the oldest living people could recall a single word from any other tongue. The only way for this writing held between Levi’s two hands to exist was if Grisha Yeager had crafted the entire language from his own imagination. Or--

“I asked my mother about it,” Eren said, answering the question on Levi’s face that he couldn’t quite put to words. “And she said that my father had come from outside. That a soldier in the Survey Corps found him during an expedition and he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there.”

“That-- I’ve been outside the Walls,” Levi said. “There’s nothing out there but trees and rocks and Titans. He would’ve had to come from very far away. And the Titans would’ve-- Maybe he snuck out from the Walls somehow.”

“That’s what Mom thought. But then, how could he have written all this?” Eren reached over and flipped through a few more pages of the book, showing Levi page after page of foreign characters.

Levi pushed the book away. It was too much. Too many possibilities, too many implications. If Hange was here, their brain would be working on overload to run through all the scenarios and apply them to what they already knew-- or what they thought they already knew. Levi’s brain, however, just wanted to shut down.

“Why are you telling me this?” he demanded. “What does this have to do with the letter?” 

Eren turned back to the recipe page. “When me and Armin figured out that this was a recipe, we realized that these had to be numbers.” He pointed out several small characters up in the ingredients, then ran his finger down the outline of the instructions. “See? Step one, step two, step three. We can’t really read any of the rest, but we can read one through ten.”

“So what?”

Eren dug into his pocket and withdrew the letter. He unfolded it, then pointed to what appeared to be a little scribble in the corner. “That’s a six.”

Levi compared the letter scribble to the step six character and had to admit that they had the same strokes. But still… “That could just be a coincidence though. It’s not complicated. Whoever wrote this could’ve scrawled it by accident without knowing it meant anything.”

“That’s what I thought at first,” Eren said. “But then I checked. Look.” He took a sheet of paper and a pencil from the table and handed them to Levi. “Write down every sixth character, starting from the beginning.”

Levi furrowed, but did as he was told. The first sixth character in the letter was ZE and then KE, which didn’t mean anything. But Eren gestured for Levi to keep going and slowly a message came together.

ZEKE IMPATIENT PLAN MOVING FORWARD WITHOUT YOU PLEASE ANSWER ME 

Fuck.

No mention of Titans or any sort of attack on the Survey Corps. No real evidence of wrongdoing. But Levi knew, in his gut, that this was it. This was their traitor.

The letter was addressed to a Reiner Braun, stationed with a Military Police troop in Sheena. It was dated four days before the disastrous expedition. There was no signature from the sender.

“Who sent this, Eren?” Levi asked. His voice came out flat and cold. He felt, suddenly, very tired.

Silent, Eren pulled the envelope out from his coat pocket and showed it to Levi.

Bertolt Hoover.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Do you think it’s really him?” Eren asked, whisper soft but urgent.

Levi didn’t want to think it. Bertolt was a decent enough guy. Mikasa had vouched for him. Just two night ago, he briskly picked Levi up off of the bathroom floor without making Levi feel like a useless lump who couldn’t even manage to stand up from a fall on his own.

But Bertolt was the only survivor from his squad. But he’d encoded a hidden message into his letter, something about a plan. But, somehow, he had knowledge of a language that didn’t belong within their Walls.

Levi nodded. Eren’s face paled, but he nodded back, determined.

“Right. Okay. Shit. When does his next shift start?” Eren asked.

“Soon. Very soon. Actually--”

Wilfrid’s sharp, no-nonsense knocked interrupted Levi. Levi muttered a curse, but he called out to her and she opened the door to peer inside.

“Hoover is here, so we’re trading off. I’ll see you later tonight,” Wilfrid said.

Bertolt loomed just beyond her shoulder. His eyes darted from Levi to Eren to Wilfrid’s back. He didn’t move.

Levi wondered, suddenly, just how well the door muffled sound. He and Eren both had been keeping their voices low out of habit, but that didn’t mean they were free and clear. Levi had put the chest of letters away earlier at least, thank the Walls, but if Eren had noticed the chest during his visits then Bertolt surely had too at some point. How much did Bertolt know about what Hange had assigned Levi to do? Did he know anything at all? Surely if he had an inking or even a guilty conscience he would look nervous-- or more nervous, as the case may be.

“Oh, I was planning to take Levi out with me. So both of you could probably go home until the next shift.” Eren turned towards Levi. “Right, Levi?”

“Yes,” Levi said immediately, although this was news to him. “You’re both dismissed. Bertolt, you can just come back for the night shift later instead of Wilfrid.”

The two soldiers blinked at him.

“...If I may ask, where are you two going, Captain?” Wilfrid asked.

“My house for dinner,” Eren volunteered before Levi could invent something. “Some fresh air will be good for him. And he can eat something that’s not hospital food.”

Wilfrid cast a dubious look at Levi’s broken leg. She’d seen how poorly he handled crutches many times already. “And how are you going to get him there?”

“With this.” Eren grabbed the contraption leaning against the bed and unfolded it. The collapsed frame became a wheelchair, though it didn’t look like any of the cumbersome wheelchairs Levi had ever seen. So Eren had been planning this dinner/escape.

Bertolt finally spoke up. “Commander Hange said we’re not supposed to leave you alone, sir.”

It took considerable effort for Levi to keep his tone level. Just a little bit of annoyance at being challenged by a subordinate, but casual enough that he didn’t come off as high-strung. “I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Eren.”

“I should come with you--”

“--No, you’re dismissed, Sergeant.” Levi said, cutting him off. “You can report me to the Commander when they get back if you like, but I’m going.”

Bertolt frowned. “...Yes, Captain.”

“You’ll take my night shift, Hoover?” Wilfrid checked. He nodded. “Very well. I will see you tomorrow morning then, Captain. Have a nice date.”

“It’s not a--” Levi shut his mouth. Let them think whatever they wanted, so long as they didn’t think he and Eren were doing something else suspicious. “Have a good evening, Lieutenant.”

Wilfrid left, her back as rigid and straight as ever but a rather pleased lope in her stride. Bertolt looked between Levi and Eren briefly before ducking his head and following Wilfrid down the hall.

Once they were both gone, Eren let loose a loud breath. “Damn. All right. Let’s get out of here before he gives me another heart attack. Get your coat on and shoes on, it’s freezing outside. Have you ever used a wheelchair before?”

Levi hadn’t, so after Levi was properly dressed Eren showed him how to maneuver it around. The wheelchair was simple enough to use, but Eren would have to push him once they hit the street-- the uneven cobblestones and snow would be too much a challenge for a beginner.

And then they were off, the chest of letter locked tight on Levi’s lap and Dr. Grisha Yeager’s journal shoved into one of Eren’s coat pockets. It had been ages since Levi had last left the hospital. The cold air was unpleasant, but Levi sucked in a few deep breaths anyway, relishing the crisp taste of it. Maybe the fresh air would do him good.

If nothing else, it helped him clear his head.

Levi wanted to talk to Eren about Bertolt, about his father’s journal, about the whole fucking mess, but there were too many people milling around the streets. So instead he asked, “Where’d you get this chair from so fast? I’ve never seen one that folds up before.”

“From home. Armin designed it and I helped him build it.”

“This friend of yours Armin must be pretty clever.”

“The cleverest,” Eren agreed. He was pushing Levi so Levi couldn’t see him, but he could hear the proud grin in Eren’s voice. “I keep telling him that he should partner with a manufacturer and start selling them, but he doesn’t think that many people would be interested. There’s only so many people who use wheelchairs and most are happy enough sticking with the standard models. Or so he says.”

Before long, they arrived at a modest-sized house with window sills lined with potted herbs. Like many homes, there was a small step between the outside and the front door. But this step was covered by a study, well-used wood ramp. Eren pushed Levi up it, then unlocked the door. 

“I’m back,” Eren called into the house.

“With my chair, I hope,” a woman called back.

“Of course,” Eren said, stepping around Levi and vanishing into another room. 

Levi wheeled behind him into the kitchen. An older woman who bore a striking resemblance to Eren sat at the table, chopping vegetables with quick, deft movements.

“Levi, this is my mother, Carla Yeager. Mom, this is Captain Levi of the Survey Corps.”

Carla rolled her eyes. “I know who he is, Eren.” Then she turned towards Levi and her face brightened. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Captain.”

Finally? Had Eren been talking about him? Levi chanced a quick glance up at Eren, who flushed a fetching shade of pink for one glorious moment. Interesting.

“Just Levi is fine,” he told Carla.

“Then, Levi, could I please have my chair back?”

Levi obligingly got out of the chair and hopped over to a seat at the table. Eren brought the chair over to his mother and she wiped her hands, then pressed on one of the chair’s arms until it went down. In an easy, practiced slide, she transferred from her kitchen seat to her wheelchair.

Her legs, Levi noticed, were terribly slim where they stuck out from the hem of her long skirt. Little more than skin and bone. There was no way they could support her weight.

_ You’re going to walk. You’re walking now. You have no idea how lucky you are to be doing that much. _

Levi did suddenly feel lucky. Or, rather, like an asshole.

“Go ahead and get that started, Eren,” Carla said, gesturing at the cut-up vegetables and then a pot that was already heating. She rolled out of the kitchen and after a moment Levi heard a door shut somewhere in the house.

Eren began adding the vegetables to the pot. From the sound of splashes, there must have been some sort of broth already cooking inside. “The house collapsed on her in Shiganshina, hurt her back bad,” he said matter of factly. “She hasn’t been able to move her legs much since then. Paralysis.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Levi said.

“You wanted to. And she’d rather I explain than her.” Eren stirred the pot and clanked the spoon loudly against the side. “I tracked down some of my father’s old doctor contacts in Rose, collected on all the favors they owed him. Gave them some information from his journals too, stuff he’d kept secret for whatever reason. Apprenticed myself. Did whatever was necessary to get her the help she needed. Now… well, she’s as fine as she ever will be.”

Eren must have been about ten when Wall Maria fell. Levi’s mother had already been dead at ten, but he still remembered the last weeks of her illness, when she was too weak to get out of bed, too tired to eat-- not that they had anything. He remembered how powerless he’d felt. In the end, he couldn’t do anything for her except stay by her side. 

Eren had been able to do something. Levi was at once both profoundly jealous and achingly relieved. 

“You said how you became a doctor was a long story. That was pretty short.”

Eren grinned crookedly over the pot. “Well, I summarized.

For a moment, Levi just watched Eren cook. With the smell of vegetables simmering in the air and the quiet noises of a well-lived-in home sounding around Levi, it was easy to forget why he was here. It would be easier still to just let himself sink into the domesticity of the scene and ignore the threat that was waiting for him back at the hospital.

But Levi had never been the kind of person who went with what was easy.

It seemed that Eren wasn’t either.

He turned to Levi, somber once more. “So what are we going to do about Bertolt?”

It was that thoughtless  _ we _ , not  _ you _ , that cinched it for Levi: he could trust Eren implicitly. Fuck, he already did.

“Let’s figure it out over dinner.”


End file.
